Maybe
by Alison3
Summary: Spike broods after Buffy's revelation in "After Life". Rated for naughty language.


Maybe   
by Alison  
  
  
He's not entirely sure what to do now. Now that he knows. And boy, was that a big hunk of pain that she laid on him.   
  
"They can never know." Bloody hell.  
  
How is he supposed to keep this one under wraps? It was a bad idea from the start and he's sure that if they had told him what they were doing, he would have voted no. No matter how much it would have killed him. No matter how much he would dream about it afterwards. He knows, better than most, what it takes to go to Hell and Buffy just didn't have it in her. Heaven was the only spot for that beautiful girl.   
  
She was the slayer for fucks sake! Where the hell else would she go? The anger inside him starts to build, the shock of her revelation wearing off, but not quite. How could they have done this to her? How could they have ripped her out of the one place she deserved to be? The place that she had more than earned? Blooding fucking HEAVEN, for fucks sake and they had the nerve to take her away from it.  
  
Because they didn't know. Because they didn't want to think that she wasn't in hell. Then, how could they justify bringing her back?   
  
Maybe if she were suffering, it would be ok....  
  
He could have told them exactly where she was. Where she had gone. They just never bothered to ask.  
  
It crosses his mind that maybe she had been with her mother. That maybe she had been with those that had gone before her. Jenny Calendar. That kid that Xander and Willow were... what the fuck was his name again? Fuck it, he hadn't even known the guy, why did he care whether she had been with him or not?  
  
Because he hadn't been there. And no matter what else happened in his life, it would never be him. He was evil, something he had reveled in since he had been turned. He had done abhorrent things that he could never be absolved from. He would never go to Heaven. And he really hadn't had the urge to go. Until her. Until her death. And then he had known. All the love- love?- in his heart had known that she was there, something in him, left over from William the romantic, told him that's where she was.  
  
And he had never wanted anything more in his life. Unlife. What-the-fuck ever.  
  
His chest hurts. It's not his heart. It doesn't beat. It's not his lungs either because he's not breathing, 'cause, hello, doesn't have to. But it still hurts. And he doesn't know why.  
  
He's going to have to play this one close to his chest. Be careful when arguing with the Scoobies because if he lets this one slip, then he'll lose her forever. And he just got her back. Rightly or wrongly, she is back. And she had come to him. Not just once but TWICE. He had her again and now it was different. She understood. He wasn't sure what was understood, exactly, but there was something about him that she now knew too.  
  
He doesn't want her to. Something in him hates that she understands. That she had to claw out of the coffin. That she had to almost rebirth herself. And that she had to even experience what he had to. She's too good for that. Too strong. Too beautiful. Too pure.  
  
Nothing at all like him.  
  
He's pissed now, so incredibly angry that they would trust him with Dawn but not with this. How could they have their stupid meetings about raising the dead- the woman that despite everything, he loved- and leave him to do all those things that he would never, EVER have done under any other circumstances- play rummy and talk about boys and listen to that damn Backdoor Boys crap that he loathed and braid hair and...   
  
But there was that. They trusted him with Dawn. Trusted him to take care of her. And he had. Very well, as a matter of fact. What if he had known? Would that have changed things? Maybe that's why...  
  
They hated him. That was why.  
  
But what if they didn't?  
  
Buffy certainly didn't hate him if she told him her secret and expected him to keep it. She trusted him with Dawn and that was before....   
  
He can't even think it. Not even now, with her back. It's as if those words would eat him alive if he thought about them at all and so he doesn't. It should be better but it isn't.   
  
Can you ever get over the death of someone you love, even if they come back?  
  
It's different now. How could it not be? It's different now and he's not sure if it will be better than before or worse but he knows that it is different. Her appearance at his crypt is proof of that. Her confession to HIM and only HIM is point two.   
  
He doesn't want to admit that he was the only one she really could confess to. The only one who didn't know. Didn't help. Didn't work the magic that pulled her out of the warmth of love and happiness that she had been enshrouded in at her death.   
  
He was the only one.  
  
Couldn't tell the Bit. She hadn't known either but she was too young to have that responsibility on her little head. The guilt that would come from knowing that you were happy having your sister back but miserable because you know that she is in Hell. A personal Hell that only she really understands.   
  
Maybe that's why she made with the sharing. Maybe that's why...  
  
Maybe there's more to it.  
  
Maybe.  
  
A guy could hope, couldn't he?   
  
  
The End. 


End file.
